Young men are desperate to talk – but the most difficult conversations might be the ones they have with each other, writes Rachel Giese.Getty Images
Rachel Giese is The Globe and Mail’s Culture and Life Editor. She is the author of Boys: What It Means to Become a Man, which won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
About a decade ago, at the beginning of what would become the #MeToo movement, I received some unexpected messages from men. As a reporter who wrote about gender and politics, I was covering the growing calls from women to openly address sexual harassment and violence, from the ambient noise of catcalls to terrifying assaults. I was also writing a book about boys at the time, and the complicated, sometimes noxious messages that they received about what it means to be “a real man.” Like most women journalists, I was used to hate mail and threats: I’ve been called the b-word and the c-word as often as my given name. But these notes were different. The men wanted my help. They wanted to know if they were part of the problem – and what to do about it.
Along with the rest of us, they were witnessing a flood of stories in legacy and social media. Women were sharing memories of dodging creepy bosses, of unwanted sex they agreed to because it seemed easier than saying no, of leering strangers on buses, of being warned by a bartender that their date had slipped something in their drink.
These men had memories, too. They told me about not speaking up when their manager made yet another sexually suggestive comment at a staff meeting. They remembered laughing at crude jokes about female classmates. They recalled not questioning what might be going on behind a closed bedroom door at a university party where everyone was drunk and high. And they wondered about encounters they had had with women, who consented to sex, but who didn’t seem fully engaged or having a good time during the act. None of these men confessed crimes to me, but to past failings and lapses they were seeing in a new way. Older, more mature, many now in healthy relationships with women as partners or friends, these men were trying to make sense of the harms they might have caused women when they were younger – and why they hadn’t known or done better.
Had they known better? I couldn’t say. But I did know that growing up, most of them would have received similar cultural lessons that objectified girls and women and that discouraged boys from building an emotional vocabulary and from valuing vulnerability, in themselves or others. They would have been fed a pop-culture diet of teen comedies featuring the rape of unconscious cheerleaders and video games in which sex workers were killed as sport. Their conversations would have been punctuated with homophobic slurs that no one ever questioned. And they would have been told at some point to “man up” because “boys don’t cry” and, above all, to abide by the code “bros before hoes.”
None of this excused those men from their past mistakes, but it did give a context that pointed to the solutions they were seeking. We’ve failed terribly at having necessary, nuanced and uncomfortable conversations with boys and young men about sex, consent, pleasure and healthy relationships. We don’t give them skills to stand up against cruelty. We don’t teach them how to connect with young women or each other in meaningful, caring ways. After all, why were these men sharing their concerns and guilt with me, a total stranger? Why weren’t they talking to each other?
Watching the trial of five former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team, charged with the sexual assault of a 20-year-old woman in a London, Ont., hotel room in 2018, it’s easy to feel that not much has changed. Maybe it’s gotten worse.
Globally, there has been a growing attack on the rights of girls and women over the past decade. In a public address last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that patriarchy “is regaining ground.” He spoke of the autocrats and populists promoting traditional values in order to limit women’s reproductive rights and economic independence. A recent Ipsos poll that surveyed attitudes about gender equality in 30 countries found that while Gen Z women are more likely to identify as feminists, young men of the same age are significantly more likely to agree that “efforts towards gender equality have gone too far and discriminate against men.”
That rising misogyny is also apparent in the online worlds that boys and young men dwell in. According to a recent report from the international gender equality group, Equimundo, digital spaces are now the primary place where boys and young men spend their time, often seeking connection and information in the manosphere – forums, live streams, videos, social media – where the content runs the gamut from bodybuilding tips to misogynist conspiracy theories. Manliness is defined here as bravado, swagger, sexual conquest, risk-taking, bullying and invulnerability. Amidst the uncertainty facing our world, it’s understandable why young men – already experiencing unprecedented levels of isolation and loneliness – would seek out the certainty and affirmation these communities, with their clear, antiquated guidelines about gender roles, porn-informed advice about sex and a steady stream of what U.S. sociologist and author Michael Kimmel calls “aggrieved entitlement,” the belief that you’re not getting what you feel you are owed, whether that’s money, power, attention or sex.
These messages might provide a temporary dopamine rush – it feels good to know you’re not alone, that someone is listening, that a good life can be had by following 12 simple rules. But they leave boys and young men worse off. The result of following this advice is limited real-life interactions, less social skills, fewer meaningful and sustaining relationships. They engage in high-risk behaviour, like steroid-use and fad diets, and bottle up their emotions behind stoic exteriors. Their online role models value their clicks, likes and engaged time over their well-being and mental health.
But this isn’t simply a tech problem, it’s a social and cultural crisis amplified by technology. The answer begins with meeting boys and young men where they live – both by getting into those digital spaces and with real, honest conversations outside of them. I’ve spent time in these spaces, with lots of young men, and I can confirm that contrary to stereotype, boys are desperate to talk. They have questions about sex, about how to get a girlfriend. They want to know if they’re gay and whether that would be a problem. They want to know about porn and how real it is, they want to know if they’re attractive, if their bodies are normal. They want to talk about their loneliness and why it’s hard to make friends. They want to tell you about how they feel misunderstood and blamed. They want to express how hard and humiliating it is to be rejected and how scared they feel all the time about not living up to expectations – because no guy can always live up to them.
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It’s in these kinds of conversations where we can talk to young men about how to communicate their feelings and needs, and how to respect the feelings and needs of others. We can talk to them about the importance of pleasure, their partner’s and their own. We can help them learn the skills to intervene when someone is in danger. And we can teach them one of the hardest lessons of all: taking responsibility when you’ve caused harm.
I don’t know if I provided any help to the men who reached out to me. In most cases, I directed them to groups like White Ribbon, the global organization that works with men and boys to end gender-based and intimate-partner violence, and suggested they might consider therapy. I hope they took my advice. I hope they’ve found peace in their lives.
Most of all, I hope that they are talking honestly and bravely about these issues to other men, especially younger ones, and about how to be a good man rather than a real man. That’s the best way to start to break this cycle that seems so hard to break.